Muffuletta: Old-school sandwich a marvel

Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT
The muffuletta sandwich is wide and low. It’s packed with cheese and ham and olives and improved by the mechanics of the squish.

My robot is old school: Wind him up and he lurches across the desk, orange tin arms swinging, red tin boots shuffling, black tin eyes deep in concentration. And though he makes excellent company, I’m glad I didn’t invite him to the robotics competition. Frankly, things have changed.

Packed into stadium bleachers, hundreds of young engineers in bright T-shirt and funny hats cheered on their creations. These robots were low and wide, smooth on their wheels and dexterous — they could pass, shoot and score. Not one blinked or grimaced. No faces.

Building the bot had taken six weeks in a sweaty basement. It took wrenches, screwdrivers, safety glasses. It took mathematics, elastics, pneumatics. It took calibration, cooperation, concentration. It took many, many sandwiches.

Home from the match, I engineered a muffuletta. The sandwich is wide and low. It’s packed with cheese and ham and olives and improved by the mechanics of the squish. It’s hearty enough to keep a whole robotics team on track. And simple enough to please the old-school fan of the windup.

MUFFULETTA

Prep: 30 minutes / Wait: 90 minutes / Serves: 6

Ingredients

21/2 cups Olive Salad (recipe follows)

1 (1-pound) loaf round Italian bread

4 ounces thinly sliced provolone

4 ounces thinly sliced ham

4 ounces thinly sliced mozzarella

3/4 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

Directions

1 Slice: Slice bread in half horizontally. Open and pull out some of the crumb (save for breadcrumbs another day).